scraping the bottom of the barrel
by case study
Summary: OC-centric, TYL-timeline-based. The Gesso-led massacre of a dissenting family's main branch leaves no one but the heir's best friend and bodyguard-in-training alive. Thrust into the belly of the beast, he has no option but to scrape the bottom of the barrel to restore a legacy lost. Accepting OCs!
1. Prologue

i.

It happened in books all the time: the traumatic protagonist shuts her eyes, and for a fleeting moment, pictures herself somewhere different, somewhere distant, a fiction in a fiction.

Adler tried. It didn't work.

He can smell the smoke from here. At least ten blocks away, the stench dogs him like hellhound, sharp and acrid. The soot had worked its way into his suit; it's his first time wearing it, and he already has to get it replaced. The back of his vest is stuck to his back, tacky with drying blood.

Not his blood.

He trudges forward, and jostles at the deadweight (wait, no, just _weight_ , not dead, not _dead_ ) at his back. Tap, tap, tap, and body pressed tight against his back, leaking blood all over his vest, rattles with a wet cough. Not dead, he thinks, the grip of his hands tightening convulsively under limp knees.

"Do you remember that time, six years ago, when you said that we'd both take our first airplane trips together?" Adler says.

At his ear, a choked, inward breath. If he shuts his eyes tights enough, forces himself to ignore the smoke and the blood and the tremors down his arms, he can just barely pretend it was a muffled laugh.

"Listen, I've got the tickets, look, they're in my pocket. We'll have to get them replaced, of course, but I'm sure the flight personnel will be understanding."

He tries to keep his tone light. It doesn't work. Cesare lets out a guttural whine of an exhale, the ghost of a chuckle; his breath brushes at Adler's ear, barely enough to ruffle at his hair.

"We're leaving in a week. We'll be going somewhere nice. High-rise buildings, vending machines on every street corner. Everything you've ever dreamt of."

His thighs burn. His steady footsteps slow to shuffle.

"Hey, hey, you said you wanted to be a Power Ranger when we were kids, remember? You've got your chance, now. We're, we're going where it started."

If he closes his eyes, he could pretend that it was a hearty, voiceless snicker that ruffled the hair along his crown. Never mind that Cesare's face was pressed into the join of his neck and shoulder; never mind that Cesare's cheek was cool against his heated skin; never mind that Cesare was bleeding from a hole in his stomach, all over his new vest.

He tries. It doesn't work.

ii.

There is no funeral. There is no point of having one, after all, when there are too many to mourn for, and barely anyone left to mourn.

Adler goes home long enough to finish burning the rest of his suit, and gather the meagre scraps of belongings he has left. His father stands at the door to their shared room, a wisp in the lamplight, wringing his hands. He asks: "Must you?"

He doesn't stay home long enough to answer.

Two weeks after the Cigno family's compound burnt to the ground, as a potent and public warning by the Gesso, Adler flies alone into the belly of the beast, spare ticket tucked neatly into the pocket of his pants.

iii.

The flight is uneventful. He touches down in Japan in the afternoon, and squeezes into a subway seat on the cheapest route down to Namimori.

It's a quiet town. His new one-room apartment is small, quaint, tucked into a district a surreptitious distance away from the its heart. His new neighbors are pleasant, though distant. The Kimuras - a middle-aged couple without any children of their own - stammer through their introductions, handing him a box of tea over rehearsed platitudes. Then, they scurry off, backs bowed, without even a second glance backwards, leaving him alone in the narrow corridor.

He drops his box down in the center of his apartment, the solitary cardboard crate of his belongings a decorative ornament in the center of the room. There's not much accessorizing in place to begin with: the walls are a dirt speckled white, the wood slightly warped under his toes; there is a couch tucked against the wall, facing a barren console table.

The bed in his new bedroom is a single.

 _He'd have strong-armed me into sleeping on the couch, wouldn't he?_

He'd have to buy new bedsheets tomorrow. Adler smooths down the mattress protector, and heads to the couch for the evening.

* * *

 **(10/11/2017) EDIT:** two whole years from the original post, i've come back. my writing has changed a bit since then, and i found myself quite unhappy with the original, so i've rewritten it. i've planned the next four-ish chapters out, as well the general story arc progression, so with luck there won't be a two-year gap between updates. (no promises, though.)

 **a/n:** aaaand that's it for the prologue i've been fascinated by the mechanics behind syoc stories for a long time now, and, since i really! need! to make sure my writing doesn't get rusty, i wanted to give starting my own a shot.

with all that said, it's time to get to the nitty-gritties of the oc submissions! which really aren't that nitty or gritty, lbr.

 _ **here are a couple of important things:**_

1) i write slash, femslash and het (in that order of frequency) and all these are likely to appear in this story. please do _not_ read this if any of those bother you. if it doesn't bother you, but you'd rather not have your characters in any of these configurations, please tell me! (or, if any configurations titillate you. this is preferable, actually.)

2) and while this might hint at romance, i do plan on taking khr's approach to romances, in that most of the pairings will stay, at best, at the level of gratuitous ship-tease.

3) my favourite element of khr is the found families trope, which will likely be one of the primary focuses of this story.

4) i'm a college student, with limited spare time and even less time management skills. updates may be sporadic, but i'll do my best!

5) i'll be picking ocs based on how well i think i could do them justice, but it would probably be very difficult to have a handle on your character if your descriptions are overly skeletal. try to be as detailed as possible!

6) to submit your ocs, please private message me the following form, with the title "character submission":

*the submissions form for antagonists will be added when the story hits its 5th chapter, so if you're looking for that, hold tight till then!

* * *

 _(updated 10/11/2017)_

 **Character's Name:**

 **Age:**

 **Gender:**

 **Appearance:** As detailed as possible, please! Hair colour, preferred hairstyle(s), build, eye colour/shape, preferred clothes and what have you not.

 **Personality:** As detailed as possible, as well! Beyond how they act, it would be nice to know their primary motivators, their strengths and weaknesses, what they believe in, their pet peeves, their quirks, how they react to adversity, how they react to pleasant things, etc. etc.

 **History:** As detailed as you see fit! I'm most interested in how their history has shaped their personality. It would be preferable for them to already be involved in petty crime/the mafia. Otherwise, please leave a note about how they could be involved in Adler's crusade against the Gesso.

 **Flame Attribute:** _Sky_ and _Mist_ are taken. (Should Adler's boss have lived, he'd be his _Lightning_ guardian now – maybe this would be something interesting to note when writing your application?) I'd like to know _why_ you think this attribute would suit your character, in view of their personality and history.

 **Weapon(s):** If your character fights with them, or fights at all. Please limit it to one or two primary weapons.

 **Box Animal + Weapon + Cambio Forma:** Nothing too outrageous, please.

 **Shipping:** Any characters you'd die to have your characters paired off with? Or any you'd rather die, than to have your characters paired off with? Would you prefer OC/OC pairings? Any relationship(s) I steer clear of? (Note that your characters don't have to be shipped, and the ships don't have to be romantic.)

 _Optional bits:_

 **Growth Arc:** Good character-centric stories have character there any challenges you would like your character to face, or things you want them to learn? Forget what your character is now, what will they, ideally, _be_? Be as vague or as detailed as you want - or even leave it entirely up to me.

 **+:** Whatever else you feel is necessary! Any ideas for how you'd like things to go for your character? Anything you'd like me to do to your character? Any ideas in general? Is there anything you _don't_ want done to your character? I have no plans to kill anyone, but there might be serious, possibly body-altering injuries. If you're not comfortable with that, let me know.


	2. I: Quiet Town

i.

The fire licks at the carpet, laps at the walls, but doesn't climb. Stagnant, it looks like a tableau: Cesare standing at the doorway haloed by smoke, his gold hair flickering with embers; a shadow edging out of a corner, firelight glinting of something metal, pointing out past the doorway.

Adler inhales. The spell breaks.

The fire surges. Smoke rushes into his lungs, clouds his vision. Something barrels hard into his side.

ii.

Adler wakes up.

He stands under the shower, until the stench of smoke to washes out of his skin.

 _Ah. I need to buy soap._

iii.

Namimori is a too-quiet town.

Housewives tittering among themselves; dazed, hungover salarymen waving in and out of the aisle, the shrill, nails-on chalkboard screech of someone trying to argue with the cashier - this, he expected, had torn himself out of his apartment at noon in an attempt to avoid the bustle. Not this, though: Housewives peering over their shoulders as they chat, shadows flitting across their faces, their children out of sight; the salarymen's blank faces as they trudge through the cornflake aisle. The argumentative customer falling silent after a whispered "please" from the cashier, as they both collectively dart their gaze around.

Balancing handful of toiletries in the crook of his elbow, Adler thumbs his way through the bedsheets on sale, casting perfunctory glances across them. Doraemon, Anpanman, Digimon, Hello Kitty, animal prints. _This is what happens if you're cheap._ He pulls an Ultraman set out of the stack. It is a mismatched hodgepodge neon red and blue. His mouth puckers, part-amused and part-disgusted _. Children's bedsheets, the ignominy_.

Cesare would _revel_ in his misery, he thinks - and stops the thought in his tracks.

"If you're looking for decent designs at a cheap price, they're selling last year's design contest winners at half-price an aisle down."

Adler jumps, whirling around. His hand flies to his side, and he grasps uselessly at the air inches away from his belt. The girl standing in front of him, to her credit, only steps back from him with a gasp, hands raised.

"Sorry, I was, uh, thinking," he mumbles, slipping his hand into his pocket like he meant to do that all along.

"Very hard, about Ultraman," she asks, teasing, as she reaches up to tuck a lock of brown, chin-length hair behind her ear. "As I was saying, they're selling last year's design contest winners at half-price an aisle down."

She motions to her left; Adler's eyes track the motion, adrenaline trickling out of him. Her hand is neatly manicured, yet oddly callused, adorned by a childish string of beads and a neatly-woven yarn bracelet.

"Oh." _How eloquent._ He swallows. The lining of his pocket feels damp. "Thank you."

"No problem!" she answers with a flourish, clapping her hands together. "I'm always happy to help. You don't look like you're from around here. You're new, aren't you?"

Adler nods, mutely. If his silence bothers her, the woman hardly shows it, bouncing lightly on her heels with a rhythmic tick-tick-tick, face thoughtful.

"Listen," she says, leaning forward - uncomfortably close - into his personal space. "I know things seem off, now, but it wasn't always like this. The people here are good people. They're doing their best."

She reaches forward to clasp a sweaty hand in hers, in a firm grip.

"It was nice to meet you! Take care!"

She flounces off, her skirt sashaying, leaving Adler's hand dangling, limp in the air. Dazed, he shuffles off in the direction she indicated prior, stopping in front of a large, cloth-bond bin. He wrestles a package out from the bin, unsticking the plastic wrappers from each other where they had gone tacky, and pulls it out.

The plastic is sticky and warm under his fingers, but the print on the bedsheets beneath it is still vivid. A paper slip had been slid into a pocket at the front of the wrapper, framed by the water-coloured goldfish dotting the rest of the of the fabric. It reads, in garish font: "Namimori Annual Textile Design Competition"; printed beneath it, is a picture of the young woman he had just met, her longer hair tied into a jaunty ponytail, as fresh-faced and disarmingly radiant as she had been just minutes ago. _Miura Haru_ , _18,_ says the caption.

He smiles, wry, and goes to looking for a shopping basket.

iii.

He takes the long road back to his apartment, forgoing lunch for a chance to see the town. It's nothing like the settlement nearby the Cigno's compound - a small village where everyone knew everyone else, and knew _about_ everyone else, the grapevine winding tight around every household, a bomb's fuse set to explode. Namimori's buildings are taller; its houses are packed, row by row, into neat, nucleated districts, filled with people he doesn't know.

Nor would he ever come to know them, if everything went according to plan.

It's past noon when he finds himself back at the apartment. He throws his armful of purchases, and then, himself onto the couch, only half-aware of couch's rickety legs protesting at the sudden weight.

His mind buzzing with half-formed plans, he only notices that his doorbell has been ringing when it stops.

* * *

 **a/n:** hey! if you're looking at this and thinking, "hey, this looks familiar!" that might be because it actually is. the original version of this chapter was posted two years ago, in october 2015. as has been stated in the prologue's author's notes, though, these two chapters have gone through a significant overhaul, and have thus been reposted.


End file.
